The exercise:
Another end of the month entry into the yearlong tale. Still nothing like a deadline to get me writing.
Time to get back to Out of the Woods.
And a happiest of birthdays to Kat. I made salmon and salad for dinner and we had a chocolate berry cashew cheesecake (which I most certainly did not make) for dessert and it was delicious.
2 comments:
Happy birthday Kat! The dinner sounds wonderful, I'm slightly jealous :)
Right, so... *maybe* a bear? And some tracks to follow, and it's definitely not fish. That's not a lot to go on; I think our protagonists should be a lot more scared than they seem so far!
Mine
Usually when he mentioned the bear spray I made the same lame joke about not wanting any bears to join us but this time my heart wasn't in it. Whatever had made the bloodstains had taken the fun out of the hike now and following this bloody trail to find, quite possibly, a half-dead person at the other end of it was chilling. The sense of relief that I'd had when we found the raft had faded away and now I was feeling dirty, tired, and worried.
The trail was easy to follow across the parking lot and then it went back onto the grass. It was harder, but not impossible; here and there the blood seemed to have clumped or stuck, like whatever was being dragged had caught on something but the further we walked the less blood there seemed to be and the harder it was to find where the trail was leading next. I pointed this out, my voice shaking just a little, and he looked around. The ground was flattish, but there were plenty of bushes and shrubs. Trees were further off, both behind us providing shade to the parking lot at the edges and ahead of us, where the hills started up again.
"Maybe they tried to hide?" he said, but I could hear doubt in his voice. "But that means...."
"That whatever caused it was still around when they were getting away," I finished. "Which means--"
"We might be walking right towards it." It's supposed to be fun when couples finish each other's sentences but that definitely wasn't. "I don't know what to do. We can keep going and maybe help this person or we turn back and get help to come out here. But they might die while we're doing that."
"We've seen a lot of blood," I said hesitantly. "They might be dead already and if we get caught too then one of us might die."
"Probably both of us," he said. He flashed me a quick grin as though to say he'd never leave me to be mauled to death by a bear but I'd rather not be caught in the first place.
"Let's go back," I said. It didn't feel quite right, but it was less scary than going on. "We get to the car and get real help out here as fast as possible. We haven't found the... the..."
"Victim? True, and we've come far enough that we can only just see the car-park. Although... how much further could they have gone, really?"
That was a good point but it felt unfair that he'd made it. I really wanted just to turn round and go back, but could I live with myself if it turned out that someone died because I didn't want to look ten metres further?
"OK," I said. "We go as far as those bushes over there," I pointed, "and if there's no clear sign of where they might be, we turn back and get a search and rescue party."
"Deal," he said and he sounded relieved. I guess he wanted to go back too and didn't want to give up too soon either.
The bushes had blood smeared on the leaves and branches on one side and, as we rounded them, we realised that something had crushed the back of the bush. Maybe someone fell over on to it, or maybe something swiped at it while aiming for something else, but the branches were snapped and torn off and scattered over the ground away from where we'd been coming from.
"What the hell?" he said, staring at it and I knew exactly what he meant.
A high-pitched wail started up, coming from somewhere between us and the car-park.
Early this month, in the hopes that the April prompt can also be posted earlier in the month than I've been managing so far...
Hopefully this gives you more to work with going forward.
Mine:
"What the hell?" It was my turn this time. Had we walked right past the... victim? How could we have missed them? Maybe they had circled back... not that there was anywhere to hide. I guess if they'd been crawling...
"Looks like we can turn back without giving up," he said, staring hard in the direction the sound had come from, slowly clenching and unclenching his jaw.
Neither of us made a move, our desire to help battling with fears for our own safety. In the silence that followed the wail it was almost easy to pretend we hadn't heard it at all. That it had just been the wind whistling through the trees.
Except that there was no wind.
And then the cry came again.
"Come on," I said, starting back. I felt foolish, hesitating instead of immediately rushing to help. Clearly there was no bear around now - there were no bushes big enough to hide it. This person wasn't going to die because I was too scared to find them.
"Hold on, hold on," he grumbled, pushing past me so that he could go first. I figured he was probably embarrassed that I had been the one to move first, so I didn't give him grief for it just then. There would be time for that later. I hoped.
The cry turned into a shriek and then a full-blown scream.
We broke into an awkward run, our packs trying desperately to throw us off balance. My heart was pounding painfully, like it was going to burst if I pushed it any further. He was several paces ahead of me, the cry getting louder and louder, filling my ears and my head.
"Oh, what the fuck?" he said, practically choking on the words as he stumbled to a halt. My reaction time was too slow to avoid bumping into his back, sending him another step forward before he scrambled back against me.
I peered around him, then immediately wished I hadn't.
There were two people where we'd been expecting one. The first was on her back, raised up on her elbows, head towards us. She was the one who was screaming.
The other was at her feet, holding onto her ankles with her head down, her long blonde hair covering her face. She was not screaming. She was grunting, making guttural noises.
And when she looked up at us we saw that her face was covered with the other woman's blood.
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